Lansdale Votes Ahead Side Street Traffic Study

Dan Sokil | The Reporter•

A driver heads down Susquehanna Avenue across Delaware Avenue toward Hancock Street in Lansdale on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024.

What do Norway, Sycamore and Lombardy Drives, Laurel Lane, Hancock Street and Delaware, Derstine and Columbia Avenues all have in common?

Besides being roads in Lansdale Borough, they’re all seeing increased traffic as a bypass around traffic — and all will be studied soon to confirm speeding concerns by residents of those streets.

"There’s one pattern, you can follow the track of it through town. It’s people trying to avoid Main Street,” said councilwoman Meg Currie Teoh .

As post-pandemic traffic levels have risen, police have fielded complaints from residents about drivers speeding and ignoring stop signs on several side streets, along with gripes about congestion on Main and Broad streets related to the rail crossing at the center of the town.

Borough police have said that added manpower in recent years could be used to help study quality-of-life issues such as speeding and congestion concerns, and the public safety committee has worked with police to identify several areas for closer study.

During the public safety committee meeting on Feb. 7, police Chief Mike Trail gave an update, saying his officers had worked with the town’s traffic engineering firm for the past year and a half to choose several roadways for a closer look.

"With respect to parking, speeding, crashes, all of the issues that everyone’s concerned about. We’ve identified certain intersections in town that are high value in the sense that they have high crash rates, they have high rates of congestion, we have high rates of vehicular traffic on residential streets that’s anomalous,” he said.

"Delaware Avenue: during a weeklong study, it had 6,000 cars. But if you look at Perkiomen Avenue, West Mt. Vernon, and Columbia, they only have 3,000 cars a week. So what is causing 6,000 cars a week to use Delaware Avenue, versus 3,000 on all the other parallel streets?” Trail said.

The working theory: Drivers are using those side streets to bypass heavy traffic on Main Street, by cutting across from North Wales Road onto north-south streets like Norway and Laurel, to get to east-west streets like Hancock, Delaware, Columbia and Derstine that have stop signs, but fewer red lights.

"And now they’ve been able to successfully dodge all of downtown, with really two traffic lights. I’ve been out there with everyone in this room,” Trail said, speaking to about a dozen residents along that route, "and we believe that is our highest-value target right now.”

Up for formal approval by the committee and then council is a proposal from traffic engineer Pennoni and Associates, at a cost not to exceed $25,000, to perform a detailed study of that bypass route and report back with their findings and any recommendations.

Trail told the committee that study is expected to take six to eight months, and would try to confirm that theories about that bypass route are true, then make recommendations for traffic calming measures that could follow, then identify grant funding such as ‘Safe Streets’ programs that could help fund any improvements.

"We hope to come out of that with A: validation, that we believe this is something that we should be doing; B: traffic calming measures that we can implement to correct the problems, and C: the identification of funding sources to actually go about doing it,” Trail said.

Mike Sarnocinski of Delaware Avenue said he’s discussed speeding issues there with the chief for "at least three years,” and has seen electronic speeding signs on the street have little effect.

"You definitely have a problem on these streets, and now you’re going to wait another six or eight months, and then wait for funding? It sounds like it’s going to be another three years,” he said.

Trail answered that he and his officers need more formal study than anecdotal observations to make changes such as new signs or signals, or even more costly changes like reconfiguring the roads themselves.

"I’m for physically changing the directions of roadways, diverting traffic, making – for example – Hancock Street one-way, where you can’t come down Hancock Street, and go across Broad and down onto Susquehanna. You won’t be allowed to do that,” he said.

An earlier round of traffic complaints involving Oak Drive years ago brought similar complaints to council and the police when he lived in that area, Trail added, and resulted in a costly but seemingly effective fix.

"I was sitting where you are, saying the same thing. What it took was, that traffic study to validate it, and what did they do? They made Oak Drive a cul-de-sac, and that took a tremendous amount of money,” he said.

"When you’re thinking grand plans, you’re definitely going to have to get the necessary technical support, that’s the data, and you’re going to have to find funding sources. I appreciate your concern that this is going to drag out a while, but unfortunately this is probably the best solution that’s going to make it last,” Trail said.

Sue Sarnocinski said she thought some of the problems were caused by out-of-town drivers attending local events like parades, and asked if the town could make easier fixes like line striping on streets or cutting back vegetation. Trail answered that every street between Broad Street and Valley Forge Road has stop signs at Cannon Avenue, but other stop signs can only be added based on PennDOT warrants that require the study data.

"I believe that if we can get that through access, from Broad, from Hancock, down to where cars are coming to Susquehanna, and get that diverted, you’re going to see a dramatic drop of traffic on Delaware Avenue,” Trail said, and Sue agreed.

Under a previous parking study, officers mapped out setback distances from stop signs and fire hydrants, and estimated that the town could lose 200 to 300 parking spaces if the department enforced strict compliance with those setbacks throughout the town.

"We could do that. And then everybody would be sitting here upset that there’s no parking,” he said.

Bernard Platt of Delaware Avenue said he’s been sharing similar concerns about that street for "over seven years, and this study hopefully will improve all of the problems you have. It’s ridiculous, and I do appreciate it,” he said.

Adam Breaux said he lives on Knapp Road, and used to see routine police speed enforcement on that street years ago, but less recently, particularly since COVID-19, and now "they blow past my house, sometimes it’s gotta be double the speed limit.”

"If we cut off the feeder roads, and people stop abusing that, it’s gonna reduce the traffic inside the borough. Those feeder roads are a problem,” he said.

Trail answered that any action on Knapp would be more difficult, because that street is split between Lansdale and adjacent Montgomery Township, but his department does constantly patrol the town’s streets.

Resident Blake Champagne said he also saw backups at the intersection of Knapp and Lansdale Avenue, and asked if an extra turn lane could be added there. Trail replied that "There’s been a lot of talk about that intersection,” and said it would be studied, but would also require formal agreements between Lansdale and Montgomery Township.

Councilman Andrew Carroll added that he sees drivers cutting down Norway drive near Wissahickon Park, and John Danowski of Derstine Avenue asked if that road would also be part of the study; Trail said the exact route would be detailed in the bid documents up for council approval.

"We’re going to study the parallel streets, and get counts for them, so we can say ‘There really is a problem.’ The next thing is to say, is ‘Why is there a dramatic increase on Delaware, versus the other streets?'” Trail said.

Breaux asked if police or the traffic engineer could track how many of those drivers were borough residents versus out-of-town drivers, and Mike Sarnocinski asked if they could identify how many drivers were from Merck or other large businesses outside the borough; Trail said both would be difficult to formally count and quantify. Danowski added that he thought the recent change of Courtland Street and Susquehanna Avenue from one-way to two-way could be contributing to higher volume on side streets, as drivers now have a new ways to leave the Century Plaza complex at Main Street and Railroad Avenue and head west on Courtland, then driving on alleys to Cannon Avenue.

"We see cars pushing in every different nook and cranny they can. Especially in the morning, when Main Street backs up because of the train,” Trail said. "Any place where there’s a roadway, where vehicles can continuously move to avoid Main Street, they do.”

The committee then unanimously voted the study ahead for full council approval, and Teoh said council could approve it when they next meet on Feb. 21.

That meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at borough hall, 1 Vine Street; for more information visit www.Lansdale.org.

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